UH Libraries News Archive

The Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL), part of the Center for Research Libraries Global Resources Network, is an open access archive of digitized federal government technical reports. Since its establishment in 2006, this library-led effort has digitized millions of pages primarily from pre-1976 publications. To date, the collection comprises digitized series from eight agencies, including those from the Atomic Energy Commission, National Bureau of Standards, and US Bureau of Mines.

The University of Houston Libraries is one of 40 institutional members of TRAIL. As a member, UH Libraries has a voice in the direction and plans for TRAIL and can participate by providing technical expertise as well as material to be digitized. Researchers benefit with access to materials that were previously not accessible online. Older government publications are often difficult to locate, yet provide critical scientific information for current research.

TRAIL partners with University of Arizona, the central processing site; University of Michigan, which routes TRAIL documents to Google for digitizing; University of North Texas, which digitizes those materials in need of special processing; and University of Washington, which developed the search interface. Through these partnerships, the documents are discoverable through search engines and HathiTrust.